
About the talk: The British Expeditionary Force faced disaster in August 1914. Driven from Belgium after the Battle of Mons, it found itself isolated from its French allies and closely pursued by numerically superior German forces.
The BEF's Commander-in-Chief, Sir John French, ordered a continued retreat
but at the darkest moment of the retreat General Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien made the bold decision to turn his forces and fight.
This talk tells the story of how and why this decision was made and examines the events of the Battle of Le Cateau, 26 August 1914.
About the Speaker: Dr. Spencer Jones MPhil PhD FRHistS is an award-winning historian and author. He is Senior Lecturer in Armed Forces and War Studies at the University of Wolverhampton and serves as the Regimental Historian for the Royal Regiment of Artillery. He is an accomplished author having published several critically acclaimed books on the British Army in the First World War.
Spencer is the co-host of the popular First World War podcast Not So Quiet on the Western Front, and has appeared on a number of television programmes including The One Show, Who Do You Think You Are and The Quizeum as well as the major Channel 4 documentary Britain's Forgotten Army and the Yesterday series The Great War in Numbers.
In 2018 he was made a Haig Fellow by the Douglas Haig Fellowship in recognition of his contribution to the field of First World War studies. He is an Honorary Vice-President of the Western Front Association